It’s time … to create a campaign.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month is a great opportunity to create a community-wide campaign
addressing sexual violence. Public education campaigns play an important role in changing
social norms and providing basic facts and education to members of your audience. Social
marketing campaigns aim to change behavior and require a different planning process that
emphasizes understanding why people do what they do. The following steps are necessary in
planning a successful campaign to raise awareness and public knowledge about an issue.
Step 1: Identify your audience
Everyone in your community has a role to play
in ending sexual violence, which makes selecting
a specific audience for a public education
campaign difficult. However, research shows that
choosing a narrow audience and tailoring your
message to that audience is the most effective
method to raise awareness about an issue.
Your community has many audiences
to choose from — p arents, teachers, law
enforcement, health care providers, students,
and more. When selecting the audience for your
campaign, consider which group has the least
knowledge and awareness of sexual violence.
It may be helpful to consider the groups that
are at highest risk for certain types of sexual
violence, or consider those that may have the
most impact in preventing sexual violence from
occurring in the first place (like opinion leaders).
It is also important to consider the demographics
of your community, making sure to include
under-represented groups in ways that speak to
their particular needs and barriers when dealing
with sexual violence.
Consider conducting a needs assessment to
help determine which audience would benefit
most from your campaign.
For information on how to conduct a needs
assessment, visit:
• The Community Tool Box
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx
• Iowa State University Extension
www.extension.iastate.edu/communities/tools/assess/
• The University of Arizona Extension
http://extension.arizona.edu/evaluation/
content/needs-assessment
If you are unable to do a needs assessment at
this time, you can look into existing information
about sexual violence in your community. You
can also access crime statistics. Ultimately,
choose your audience based on your knowledge
of the community and your organization’s
resources and goals.
Step 2: Write objectives
This step goes hand-in-hand with choosing a
target audience. In planning a public education
campaign, it is critical to clearly articulate why
you chose to participate in this campaign. It
is often helpful to outline objectives for your
campaign. Detail the specific knowledge or
attitude change you wish to see in your selected
audience (remember that you are not changing
behavior with this campaign, but changing
knowledge, attitudes, and/or beliefs). Do you
want people to know the truth behind rape
myths, to know how to help a survivor, or to
understand what they could do to intervene
when they see sexual harassment or other
forms of sexual violence? Here are some sample
objectives:
y Objective 1: Increase knowledge
about the range of behaviors that
constitute sexual violence.
y Objective 2: Increase knowledge
about community sexual assault
services.
y Objective 3: Increase ability of
individuals to identify and counteract
common rape myths.
y Objective 4: Increase people’s
knowledge around how to intervene
when witnessing sexual harassment
or sexual violence.
Step 3: Devise strategies
Once you outline your objectives,
determine strategies to use in this campaign that
accomplish your goals. Examples of strategies
include:
y Create posters containing information
and statistics about sexual assault
y Write a “Letter to the Editor” for your
local newspaper
y Invite speakers to talk to a group
about community involvement in
preventing and/or responding to
sexual violence.
y Distribute brochures and/or palm
cards containing facts and
information about sexual violence
to individuals and/or businesses at
sporting events, concerts and
community festivals.
y Create public service announcements.
y Distribute campaign messages via
e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.
y Stage a theater performance
Select strategies that resonate with your target
audience and are realistic for your organization
based on your resources and timeline.
Step 4: Talk to your audience
Before you design materials, touch base with
some members of your audience
using surveys or focus groups to verify the
message(s) you chose are appropriate and
provide them with new information. This can
sometimes feel overwhelming as your schedule
and budget may be barriers to planning and
conducting formal focus groups. One option
may be to partner with other organizations
and attend their meetings to get feedback and
spread awareness. These interactions can be
informal; the goal is to obtain insights about
your messages from the people you are trying to
reach.
Conducting focus groups will help to determine
if the messages you plan to use are effective
with your audience. Share the facts you want
to include and ask for reactions. Would this
fact make sense if they read it on a poster?
Is it something your audience doesn’t know?
Questions like this will help you decide what to
ultimately include in your educational materials.
Step 5: Develop messages
If you were able to conduct a needs
assessment of your target audience, you should
have a clear understanding of their specific
knowledge gaps in relation to the objectives of
this campaign. Alternatively, if you have learned
that many people understand that sexual
assault is a problem, but don’t know how to help
someone who has been victimized, choose to
present information about community services
and victims’ rights.
If conducting a needs assessment wasn’t
possible, see if you can locate other research
about community-wide attitudes and beliefs
toward sexual violence. For example, perhaps
a local college has conducted independent
research on this topic that you could use. If your
program does peer education, inquire about any
pre- and post-test surveys that might provide
insight about beliefs and attitudes. Ultimately,
you will have to choose 3-5 facts or messages to
convey to your target audience.
Step 6: Get creative
Once you gather information from your
target audience, start putting your campaign
together. If you plan to develop something that
requires graphic design, such as a poster or
brochure, consider talking with a local art school
or college to find students or faculty willing to
create artwork at no cost. Likewise, research
other organizations that have developed similar
campaigns and messages.
Step 7: Go back to the audience
Allocate time to retest your campaign
materials with your target audience. After all
your hard work and planning, you’ll want to
feel confident in your messaging and materials.
Make changes to better meet the needs of your
audience. Ultimately, your campaign will only be
effective if your audience pays attention to your
message, so this is a crucial step.
Step 8: Implement strategically
After making necessary revisions to your
materials, consider how and where you’ll
distribute them. For local outreach, ask staff at
hospitals, libraries, malls, universities and gyms
about posting your materials on their bulletin
boards. Reach online audiences through e-mail
and social networking sites.
Step 9: Evaluate
Effective evaluation is an important element
of any public education campaign. Some simple
steps for evaluation include keeping track of
the number of materials you distribute or how
many times a PSA was shown. Data collection
and evaluation will help shape future campaigns
and assist you in using resources judiciously.
If passing out brochures was not successful
this year, redirect your staff to do something
different for next year’s campaign.
It’s helpful to compare your target audience’s
knowledge and awareness before and after the
campaign was launched. Conducting a pre- and
post-campaign survey is one way to determine
effectiveness. Connect with experts in your
community who may be willing to volunteer. For
more, visit www.nsvrc.org/saam/resources.
Timeline
Begin planning your campaign several months
before the launch date. You will need a month
or two to collect information about sexual
violence in your community and identify gaps
in knowledge to help you select your target
audience. It may take you a few weeks to come
up with your main messages based on your
audience and objectives.
Allow approximately a month to recruit focus
group participants and obtain feedback on your
messages. Creating campaign materials can take
anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, depending
on who you are working with to create content
and how many items you plan to have made. If
you are working with a professional designer,
factor in more time for brainstorming and
revisions. If you are working with someone
within your agency, you may be able to move
through this stage more quickly. Try to obtain
high-resolution art files such as your agency’s
logo early in the process so you’ll have them on
hand for future projects.
For your convenience, the Sexual Assault
Awareness Month logo is included on this CD. If
you have questions regarding the usage, please
e-mail resources@nsvrc.org.
Once you have materials in hand to show your
audience, allow 3-4 weeks to hold another focus
group. Depending on the feedback you receive,
you may need to make significant changes to
your materials. Give yourself 2-3 weeks to make
changes and finalize everything before printing
in bulk and implementing your distribution
strategy. Evaluation should be factored in
throughout the process, but particularly if you
plan to have pre- and post-tests. You will need
about a month to administer and evaluate pre/
post-test data at the beginning and end of the
campaign. Other evaluation measures may not
take much time, such as checking data regarding
website traffic.
If you are unable to start planning your
campaign far in advance, consider how you
might be able to break up the work into a multi-
year effort, with background research and
planning during year one and implementation
during year two. Or, work on the campaign in
smaller pieces over a longer period of time when
you, your staff and volunteers have breaks in the
workload. While it is important that you follow
the steps outlined in this guide for maximum
effectiveness, there are many creative ways to
plan and implement a flexible campaign.